Most of the successful entrepreneurs in Kenya and beyond undoubtedly came from very humble beginnings. Most of them started out small and battled many challenges but managed to grow their companies to national brands.
This is the story of Muthoni Ngugi, the founder of Gaze Furnishings, currently Gaze Global Limited. The bold businesswoman revealed she went through a lot of life struggles before succeeding in entrepreneurship to be listed under the Forbes 30 under 30.
She recalled moving out of her parent’s home while still in university, aged 18, due to financial difficulties back home.
”I moved out when I was 18 because of problems at home. I was in second year at the University of Nairobi studying finance. I was already fending for myself,’’ she told Daily Nation.
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Muthoni would later resort to doing casual jobs to keep her afloat. She started out as a personal assistant at a real estate firm, earning Sh15,000 monthly, an amount that was enough to cater to her needs.
She quit the job in 2015 after landing a waitress job in two restaurants in Nairobi, one at day night and the other at night. In between, she had to find two hours from her tight schedule to teach literature at a private school.
Having seen an opportunity for a fortune in the interior design sector, Muthoni withdrew her savings and enrolled for an online course in interior architecture as she had already dropped out of school due to lack of fees.
She completed the course after six months and started the business, a move she describes as a leap of faith.
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”I would come up with a furniture design and then contract a carpenter to make the piece. Owing to resource constraints, I only made a few pieces which I would then sell to get my cut,’’ she revealed.
By 2019, her business had broken even and had employed over ten employees, including carpenters, office assistants, and showroom attendants.
Her design studio and workshop in Utawala Nairobi makes not only furniture but also stocks home and office artefacts and interior décor items such as marble, artificial flowers, and vases.
Muthoni reportedly makes up to Sh5 million from her furniture business. Today, she doesn’t count success in terms of money but in terms of the experiences and lessons learned along the way.
“But now it doesn’t matter. I can say I am successful not because of the money I have seen or I have made or the possessions we have had and lost.” She said.
”It is because of the co-values that I’ve acquired through all these processes and it’s because I can empower somebody who is almost at that stage or who is afraid to get there…….That is my success story,” she added.
